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copyfight

Microsoft says Zune won't filter your home videos, promise

After news that NBC had asked Microsoft to develop content filtering technology to keep infringing files off the Zune spread like wildfire, Cesar Menendez, a Microsoft employee working on the Zune, said there was no agreement between the television network and the technology company to implement any such plan.
We think some folks in the industry were expressing hopes for how the entire industry, not just Microsoft, would come to look at content distribution, and some speculation has ensued.
In other words, a bit of wishful thinking on NBC's part. More »

10:00 AM on Thu May 8 2008
By Jackson West
230 views, 3 comments

Latest by WagCurious: Well at least you printed your retraction on the front page. more »

copyfight

Microsoft's antipiracy protection may doom video Zune

Part of the deal between NBC and Microsoft to sell television shows to Zune owners is that Microsoft will attempt to build in antipiracy technology that keeps anything you might have downloaded through less than legitimate means off the device. In other words, you can say goodbye to trading MP3 files or videos with your friends on the Zune — instead, you'll have to use officially authorized sources to charge it up with content. How will the Zune know if the video you're trying to download to the device was downloaded illegally or, say, created by you? Until digital watermarking technology improves significantly, it won't, and even then, who knows. So for you lonely Zune owners, prepare to get even lonelier, because the second the company implements this "feature," it can kiss goodbye to what little market share it now enjoys. (Photo by AP/Ted S. Warren)

2:40 PM on Wed May 7 2008
By Jackson West
324 views, 6 comments

Latest by nojo: @WagCurious: The original site quotes a guy that does not work for Microsoft. No, J.B. Perrette is merely "president of digital distribution for NBC Universal"... Until NBC Uni retracts, or Microsoft trots out someone of equivalent authority to comment on the record, more »

microsoft

Lonely Zune owner reaches out on Craigslist

While in the strictly platonic section of Craigslist, this anonymous Angeleno writes in a tone more suited to casual encounters, what with the desire to "rocket sweet tracks up each other's Zune slots" and the need for "a hearty and steadfast product." I'm willing to bet my Shuffle against your Zune the author is NBC's Jeff Zucker, and that he wasn't being ironic.

5:40 PM on Tue May 6 2008
By Jackson West
2,839 views, 3 comments

apple

Jeff Zucker's Zune revenge

Having dropped Apple's iTunes store in a dispute over pricing, NBC Universal will soon start selling downloads of TV shows like The Office and 30 Rock for its Zune media player. If NBC chief Jeff Zucker manages to scrape some sales out of Microsoft's handheld also-ran, it will be a miracle — and the surest proof yet that content, not hardware, is king. Don't hold your breath. Microsoft's Zune has always seemed like a parody of Apple's iPod. Want to buy songs? Well, first you buy "points" from Microsoft, which you can then exchange for music at some bizarre exchange rate. Nothing about its user interface seems quite right compared to Apple's polish. The system for TV shows is no better. Though Microsoft also makes the Xbox, shows downloaded to a Zune won't play on the videogame console unless you're adept at fiddling with cables. By going with Microsoft, Zucker is betting that technology doesn't matter, design doesn't matter, and market share doesn't matter. He must really believe in his prime-time lineup. (Photo via Fake Steve Ballmer)

9:00 AM on Tue May 6 2008
By Owen Thomas
1,074 views, 7 comments

Latest by audiophil: @jbelkin: great idea! I'd call the show 'Welcome to the social' more »

online video

Friday Night Lights will continue, but available on torrent sites months before Hulu

Critically acclaimed but chronically low-rated jock opera Friday Night Lights managed to sneak in a third season thanks to a unique deal between NBC Universal and DirecTV. But the network has built an interesting window into the release — the episodes will premiere on DirecTV's "The 101" channel in October, but not air in prime time until February. The episodes also won't be available on Hulu until NBC airs them next year, which makes no sense at all. More »

3:40 PM on Fri Apr 4 2008
By Jackson West
581 views, 1 comment

Latest by Big John: BT wins again, silly peacock tv is for kids! more »

bad ideas

Page Six's full scoop on Julia Allison's "IT Girls" reality show


Valleywag commenters hate the idea, but the New York Post's Page Six loves IT Girls, the proposed reality TV show with New York umtrepreneurs Julia Allison, Meghan Asha and Mary Rambin.
These three are more career-driven and have more to say than their L.A. counterparts, which should only lead to more drama. Even when they're not hitting Waverly Inn for dinner or flying cross-country for exclusive Silicon Alley [sic] events, this clique is never boring. They get Restylane injections for fun, own pocket-size dogs, and never go anywhere without blogging about it. What's not to love?
In the full-spread pic below, the Post speculates, and we can confirm, the show will air on Bravo, if the pilot's picked up. (One correction: Meghan Asha, née Parikh, is the heir to her father's Silicon Valley fortune, but it didn't come from Sun Microsystems.) Set your DVR now. More »

4:40 PM on Mon Mar 24 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
5,133 views, 39 comments

Latest by merdiva: eh these skanks couldn't scratch their way out of a Fedora box, I'd like to see them crawling around under racks tracing cables. This is SO stupid and an insult to all "REAL" girls that are in IT. They'll more »

quarterlife

Why Web video isn't ready for prime time after all

Quarterlife, the stapled-together-for-prime-time Web-video series about twentynothing artists, flopped so hard that NBC is kicking it off the team. It sucked in a measly 3.1 million viewers during its NBC debut last night — half what programs on ABC and CBS pulled. As penance, "Quarterlife" will be riding the pine on Bravo's minor-league roster. Ben Silverman, cochairman of NBC Entertainment, described the original deal to bring Quarterlife to the airwaves as a "revolutionary step in the creation of television." In retrospect, it's easy to say he should never have bought the show, if only because watching Quarterlife makes me want to punch myself in the face. But would any other Web video have fared better. Perhaps, if NBC had followed this playbook: More »

1:40 PM on Thu Feb 28 2008
By Mary Jane Irwin
605 views, 3 comments

Latest by ItsBusinessBaby: the show sucks - mass america doesn't want to watch a semi-technical show about geek bloggers more »

apple

NBC's Zucker explains why he thought he could push Steve Jobs around

NBC Universal head Jeff Zucker told a hall full of future Harvard MBAs yesterday that Steve Jobs booted NBC television from the iTunes store last summer because Zucker merely asked to experiment with show pricing. In fact, Zucker went on, NBC Universal films are now a part of the iTunes movie store only because Jobs bowed to NBC's demand for variable pricing. It's a convenient narrative, but not what actually happened. More »

8:30 AM on Thu Feb 28 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
2,899 views, 1 comment

online video

Beam me up! CBS.com streams full episodes of "Star Trek"

When I was a lot younger, I taped — onto VHS! — all of the original Star Trek episodes when they aired at 3 a.m. on Friday nights, so I could watch them later. If only I had waited 13 years. CBS has put all three seasons of Star Trek online for anyone to view, along with a number of other old shows to the Audience Network, including The Twilight Zone, Hawaii Five-O and MacGyver. More »

10:20 AM on Fri Feb 22 2008
By Jordan Golson
3,260 views, 16 comments

NBC will stream old TV shows on NBC.com, just like already does through Hulu. And through NBC Direct. And on the box in your living room. [SAI]

Comment

rumormonger

Hulu lands Time Warner, Viacom deal still closing

Time Warner and Viacom video content will soon run on Hulu, the Web video joint venture from NBC Universal and News Corp. The Time Warner deal is done, while Viacom's is "not totally signed," a source tells us. Both deals are said to be nonexclusive. (A Hulu spokesbot autodialed us to relay the nitpick that the paperwork hasn't been signed yet. Whatever.) The news isn't a shock: Time Warner subsidiary AOL agreed to distribute Hulu at launch and before the site even had a name, Viacom executives have praised Hulu in concept. Just yesterday, MTV exec Van Toffler said, "We've been talking to [Hulu] since the beginning, and we like it a lot." Mostly because it's not YouTube, of course.

2:21 PM on Wed Feb 13 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
1,524 views, 1 comment

Latest by macbeach: I've been holding out for years for Video on demand and been disappointed with all the lame offerings so far. Hulu is shaping up to be yet another disappointment. I was encouraged at first by a dozen episodes of some more »

online video

Viacom execs tempted by Hulu dance?

A NewTeeVee report suggests Viacom and its subsidiaries may be moving closer to licensing content to Hulu, NBC Universal and News Corp.'s Web video joint venture. "We've been talking to them since the beginning, and we like it a lot," MTV exec Van Toffler told NewTeeVee. He described Hulu as "sleek and simple." We hear MTV is as likely to syndicate content on Hulu as it is on Amazon Unbox or anywhere else. Another MTV exec, Courtney Holt, said "We're really bullish on syndicating our content." $1 billion says they're not thinking of YouTube. (Photo by L.x. Fringes)

9:40 AM on Wed Feb 13 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
281 views, 1 comment

Latest by instigatorLA: hulu rocks. more »

politics

MSNBC streaming Super Tuesday coverage online

MSNBC is offering a live Webcast of its Super Tuesday coverage online. Could this be the first time a cable channel has simulcast news coverage on the Web? I've asked MSNBC if that's the case, but the network has yet to get back to me. A live broadcast is significantly more expensive than serving up a cached video, as YouTube does. The only other major live Internet broadcast has been pay-only from Major League Baseball, and that's not a replica of a cable channel. Stuck at your computer? Hit the jump to watch some MSNBC, straight from your desk. More »

4:04 PM on Tue Feb 5 2008
By Jordan Golson
2,876 views, 8 comments

Latest by DorothyMantooth: That avatar is absolute genius! I think our avatars need to date. more »

clips

On "Today," Meredith Vieira slobbers over the MacBook Air


It's not just the fanboys who are drooling over Apple's new MacBook Air: Today show host Meredith Vieira says, "I've heard that if you lick it, you own it." And then proceeds to give Steve Jobs's creation a tongue bath, live, on national TV.

4:20 PM on Thu Jan 24 2008
By Owen Thomas
1,026 views, 10 comments

media

Oprah to OWN her own cable channel

Who needs a YouTube channel when you can have your own cable network? Estrogen-drenched media mogul Oprah Winfrey has formed a cashless 50-50 joint venture with Discovery Communications to launch the Oprah Winfrey Network in mid-2009. The channel will replace the Discovery Health channel and, in exchange, Discovery will operate the Oprah.com website. With her name all over the network — and her aspirations for global dominance spelled out in the channels acronym — Winfrey appears fully committed to this latest venture. Unlike her last cable channel, Oxygen. More »

1:41 PM on Tue Jan 15 2008
By Tim Faulkner
320 views, 4 comments

Latest by Ron-Mexico: The only cult leader who could induce a larger mass suicide than Steve Jobs. more »

online advertising

Glam's flim-flam campaign draws NBC to compete

Give Samir Arora this much credit: The founder of Glam Media is an excellent salesman. Especially when pitching a gullible press corps. Folio is the latest to take the bait. The magazine swallows Arora's line that as an ad network, Glam deserves comparison to wholly-owned media properties. (Such as, I should mention, Jezebel.com, the women's site published by Gawker Media, the owner of Valleywag.) It's nonsense, of course. But when Deborah Fine, CEO of NBC Universal's iVillage, points this out, she's portrayed as a disgruntled rival, not a voice of reason. Too bad Folio didn't listen to her, or talk to stock analysts, or do anything, really, besides transcribe what Arora told the magazine. Brokering ads on thin margins is a rough business, and one in which Glam competes with Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo. And now, NBC. More »

10:43 AM on Fri Jan 11 2008
By Owen Thomas
838 views, 1 comment

Latest by raincoaster: As a blogger, I'm relatively pro-Glam, for very simple reasons: the money is good, and they pay on time. more »

hires

New Apple board member the right woman for job

Steve Jobs has quieted one long-running concern of unhappy Apple shareholders by naming Avon CEO Andrea Jung to the male-dominated board of the Cupertino-based computer maker. Jung will be the board's first female member in nearly 11 years. The addition likely has nothing to do with appeasing feminists, however, and everything to do with Jung's business connections. She also serves on the board of GE, the parent of NBC Universal. Apple's media strategy has been hindered by a feud between NBC's Jeff Zucker and Jobs over selling TV shows online. Jung will likely have to recuse herself from any direct dealings. But as a behind-the-scenes peacemaker? She's perfectly made up. (Photo by Avon)

2:33 PM on Mon Jan 7 2008
By Tim Faulkner
522 views, 4 comments

Latest by 0x6772: @macbeach: Are you suggesting that purse-shaped iBooks will make a return? more »

ces 2008

Microsoft cuts deals with NBC Universal, Disney, MGM and Showtime

From The Wall Street Journal: "Microsoft said that NBC Universal Inc., Walt Disney Co., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. and Showtime Networks Inc. have agreed to contribute entertainment content to the software maker's Xbox Live and MSN online services. The deals were slated to be announced during a speech by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates on the opening night of the Consumer Electronics Show."

7:32 PM on Sun Jan 6 2008
By Paul Boutin
465 views, 2 comments